Children's Mercy Hospital Given $1 Million Grant

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - A Kansas City hospital has received a $1 million to provide quick genetic testing for acutely ill children.

Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics announced the gift from the William T. Kemper Foundation in a news release Monday.

The hospital says the grant will fund a Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine, which focuses on diagnosing inherited pediatric diseases and improving health care for children.

Officials say the hospital will be able to decode a critically ill child's entire genome and analyze the results in as little as two days.

The hospital says in the news release that Children's Mercy is the only pediatric hospital in the world with access to the rapid genome sequencing approach. It allows physicians to tailor treatments to individual infants and children.